Dilip Simeon's blog

The recent attempt of a military coup has raised more questions than it has answered about the emerging complexities of Turkish politics. This development has sent a shock wave among all the international stakeholders in the region as it generated fear of further destabilisation of an already destabilised region. The narratives about the occurrence of the coup range from a possible involvement of the Erdogan regime itself so as to further consolidate its unfettered rule by controlling the institution of the military on the one hand to the alleged involvement of the Gulen movement, on the other hand. However, between these two poles, the possibility of a revolt by a section of Kemalist military officers can not be ruled out. However, it is Erdogan’s allegation of direct involvement of Fateullah Gulen and the Gulen movement in the coup that has received worldwide attention. Gulen, a Turkish Islamic scholar living in the US since 1998, is credited to have inspired a worldwide Islamic ...

NB: This is an atrocious decision by the Jamia authorities and will further worsen the climate of authoritarianism in India and the world. Erdogan is a communal dictator who holds intellectuals in utter contempt. He has ferociously attacked academics and journalists ; against whom he launched a witch-hunt last July, closing over 100 newspapers and media outlets. Turkish intellectuals have denounced his regime as a dictatorship, whose elite is  informed by a mix of neoliberal economic policies and political Islam . Apoorvanand rightly asks us to remember the  smear campaign launched against Jamia and Aligarh Muslim University by those who hold power today.  As Chomsky reminds us, it is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak truth and expose lies. Jamia is lowering its status as a university by honouring Erdogan; and i t is good that some of its alumni are protesting.  Meanwhile Erdogan enjoys a warm welcome from the government and corporate organisations:...

"Both materially, and in essence, sovereignty unconditionally and always belongs to Allah." — Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister, Turkey. Once again, Turkey's Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is – although ineffectively – cracking down on  social media , most notably Twitter, which public outrage forced him to reinstate, and the latest municipal elections were again ridden with  intimidation and fraud . On September 12, 1980, the Turkish military cracked down on religious opposition movements that challenged the secular state, and took power over the country. What stood out during these events was that Western nations, with political structures vigorously opposed to military involvement in civil politics, were actually relieved by the military's action [1] . After all, one year earlier the secular and allied state of Iran had transformed into a theocratic and hostile nation. Over time, however, a worrying dynamic revealed itself: The Western view of Is...

Erdogan likes to say 'whoever wins Istanbul, wins Turkey.' His party's defeat is a crushing blow Change, hope, and a new beginning. That's the promise of  Istanbul's newly elected mayor  Ekrem Imamoglu. His slogan, "Everything will be great," is on everyone's lips in Turkey. Imamoglu's win in the repeat of the  mayoral vote  invigorates Turkey's fatigued opposition. It breathes new life into a part of the Turkish electorate that had lost all hope of a victory at the ballot box, but still believed in safeguarding the country's democracy. The revote was less about the office of the mayor and more about the question of whether or not the most basic and indisputable part of the democratic process, the ballot box, would survive the tenure of  President Recep Tayyip Erdogan .  Not only did it survive, it also sent a very clear message by giving Imamoglu the power over Turkey's financial heart. But to view his victory only as a win for t...

"The destruction of Gezi Park is thus a landmark in the convergence between the neoliberal and “moderate Islamist” agendas: rebuild the center city for the rich and tourists; exile the poor to the outskirts; and console them with religion.  This agenda also entails cutting back public spending in favor of  "faith-based" charity.    It is an agenda many in Washington can get behind." Taksim, Convergence and Secular Space   On June 11, following threats by Turkey’s PM Erdogan that demonstrators who held out would “pay a price,” an  overwhelming force  of 20,000 riot police, complete with  agents provocateurs   throwing Molotov cocktails, cleared Gezi Park in scenes reminiscent of Occupy Wall Street.  Like OWS, the struggle over the fate of Gezi Park in Taksim Square has been many things.  It has been a real struggle over real space.  It has been a symbolic struggle over the meaning of democracy.  It has been an il...

The sweeping electoral victory of the BJP in India is the latest expression of the world-wide advance of a new power bloc which promises to impose a New World Order harnessing ethno-religious fanaticism and narrowly trained technocrats to capitalist absolutism . See also - Turkey: Erdogan's Theological Justification for His Dictatorial Stance The far-right is no longer at the margins of western political discourse. It is center-stage. It is no longer dependent on contributions by local militants; it receives financing from the biggest global corporations. It is no longer dismissed by the mass media. It receives feature coverage, highlighting its ‘dynamic and transformative’ leadership.  Today capitalists everywhere confront great uncertainty, as markets crash and endemic corruption at the highest levels erode competitive markets. Throughout the world, large majorities of the labor force question, challenge and resist the massive transfers of public wealth to an ever reduced ...

Istanbul:  Turkish police fired tear gas and water cannon on Friday at demonstrators in central Istanbul, wounding scores of people and prompting rallies in other cities in the fiercest anti-government protests in years.  Thousands of demonstrators massed on streets surrounding Istanbul's central Taksim Square, a venue for political unrest, while protests erupted in the capital, Ankara, and the Aegean coastal city of Izmir. Broken glass and rocks were strewn across a main shopping street near Taksim. Primary school children ran crying from the clouds of tear gas, while tourists caught by surprise scurried to get back to luxury hotels lining the square.  The unrest reflects growing disquiet at the authoritarianism of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP).  Riot police clashed with tens of thousands of May Day protesters in Istanbul this month. There have also been protests against the government's stance on the confl...

(Reuters) -  Turkey  has seen a sharp rise in religious schooling under reforms that President Tayyip Erdogan casts as a defence against moral decay, but which opponents see as an unwanted drive to shape a more Islamic nation. Almost a million students are enrolled in "imam hatip" schools this year, up from just 65,000 in 2002 when Erdogan's Islamist-rooted AK Party first came to power, he told the opening of one of the schools in Ankara last month. The schools teach boys and girls separately, and give around 13 hours a week of Islamic instruction on top of the regular curriculum, including study of Arabic, the Koran and the life of the Prophet Mohammad. "When there is no such thing as religious culture and moral education, serious social problems such as drug addiction and racism fill the gap," Erdogan told a symposium on drug policy and public health earlier this year. But in the drive to create more imam hatip places, parts of schools have been requisit...

A Turkish court has detained well-known journalist Sedef Kabas for allegedly insulting the country's president .  Ms Kabas was arrested on Saturday in Istanbul and a court ordered her to be jailed ahead of a trial. She is accused of targeting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with a proverb which she quoted on live television on an opposition-linked TV channel. She denies the charge. The charge carries a prison sentence of between one and four years. "There is a very famous proverb that says that a crowned head becomes wiser. But we see it is not true," she said on the Tele1 channel. "A bull does not become king just by entering the palace, but the palace becomes a barn." She also later posted the quote on Twitter.  Mr Erdogan's Chief Spokesman Fahrettin Altun described her comments as "irresponsible".  "A so-called journalist is blatantly insulting our president on a television channel that has no goal other than spreading hatred," he wro...

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned over the weekend that an Israeli strike on Iran would have "disastrous" consequences for the Middle East, likely sparking a regional war, Turkish newspapers reported on Sunday. Turkey is a major U.S. ally in the region and Erdogan indicated that he had expressed his concerns to President Barack Obama.  Erdogan was quoted by the Turkish daily Hurriyet as warning against the "disastrous" outcome of a possible Israeli strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, saying: "The entire region would be devastated if Israel strikes Iran." Erdogan also criticized the international community for keeping mum on Israel's alleged nuclear weapons, while threatening Iran over what he said was a peaceful nuclear program., "Israel has between 250 to 300 nuclear warheads. Nobody is discussing that," Erdogan said, adding: "Iran says they would not produce nuclear weapons. They are saying that they would pr...

“According to what constitution can you pass 19 articles in 20 minutes?”  ANKARA (Reuters) – Thousands of Turkish opposition supporters demonstrated in the capital Ankara on Tuesday against a government attempt to railroad a new education bill through parliament which secular parties say is designed to promote Islamic schooling. The government wants to overturn a 1997 law imposed with the backing of the military which extended compulsory education from five to eight years, but also stopped under-15s attending religious “imam hatip” schools. That led to a sharp decrease in the numbers at the schools which were originally set up to train Muslim clerics. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and nearly half his cabinet attended imam hatip schools. The main secular opposition People’s Republican Party (CHP) agrees on the need for education reform, but says Erdogan is seeking revenge for the 1997 law and attempting to bring about his stated desire to raise a “religious youth”....

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has condemned Pope Francis for calling the 1915 mass killing of Armenians genocide, and warned him not to make such a statement again. "We will not allow historical incidents to be taken out of their genuine context, and be used as a tool to campaign against our country," Erdogan said in a speech to a business group on Tuesday. "I condemn the pope and would like to warn him not to make similar mistakes again." The pope became the first head of the Roman Catholic church to publicly call the killing of as many as 1.5 million Armenians "genocide" on Sunday, prompting a diplomatic row with Turkey, which summoned the Vatican's envoy and recalled its own. Muslim Turkey agrees Christian Armenians were killed in clashes with Ottoman soldiers that began 100 years ago on April 15, 1915, when Armenians lived in the empire ruled by Istanbul, but denies hundreds of thousands were killed and that this amounted to geno...